All Rise...

Editor's Note

The Charge

Power. Privilege. Puh-leeze.

Opening Statement

Everybody who doesn't "have it" in this world—"it"
being that ineffable combination of wealth, good breeding and knowing the right
people—look upon those who do "have it" with suspicion and
scorn. How did they get where they are? Certainly being born into the right
upper-class whitebread family helps a lot, but maybe there's something more to
it than that. Suggest the notion that there's a conspiracy at work, and everyone
takes notice.

That's the mound from which The Skulls is pitched: the idea that all
the movers and shakers in American politics, all the tycoons and a hefty number
of CIA agents (although, really, if you had a choice between being a tycoon or a
CIA agent, which would you choose?) all emerged from a sinister secret society
in one of our very own Ivy League universities.

Like all secret societies, they have a bottomless budget, and they are
always watching you. If you play by their rules, they'll give you everything you
ever dreamed of. But cross them, and they'll stick you in a goofy and
meaningless movie like this one.

Facts of the Case

Luke McNamara (Joshua Jackson) is a poor boy struggling his way towards law
school at an unnamed New Haven University with lots of "Y"s on all the
walls (most of the film was actually shot at the University of Toronto, but they
go to great pains to suggest that the setting is Yale. I guess there are no cool
secret societies in Canada). His rowing victories earn him the attention of the
Skulls, who promise to pay his way through school and then some. But his
inclusion causes some tension with his liberal arts buddies Will (Hill Harper)
and Chloe (Leslie Bibb). When Will infiltrates the Skull's "Ritual
Room" to discover their secrets, Luke's new Skull pal Caleb (Paul Walker)
catches him, setting up Luke's dilemma between his loyalty to his friends and
his duties as a Skull.

The Evidence

The Skulls is obviously aimed at the 15-22 set, who aren't really
interested in Star Chamber politics but really dig the idea of getting
lots of free stuff. This explains the casting of Joshua Jackson (TV's
Dawson's Creek) and Paul Walker (Varsity Blues, She's All That), as well as the
prerequisite romantic sub-plot and the car chase scenes near the end.

I'm not sure if Yale is really that good a choice of setting for that
particular demographic, but director Rob Cohen does his darnedest to make it
seem opulent, mysterious, and action-packed. The cinematography won't win any
Oscars, but the DVD certainly does deliver some impressive visuals. The transfer
is sound, and Cohen's use of light and shadow in the Skulls' catacombs is well
planned-out. More on those catacombs later, though.

Universal's Collector's Edition DVD also has a wealth of extras to offer.
Rob Cohen has a feature-length commentary track, most of which is interesting
and insightful, touching on some of the challenges of filming a thriller on a
"modest" budget ($15 million). He explains a lot of the correlations
between the fictional Skulls and the real-life Skull and Bones Club, to which
William Taft and George Bush both belonged.

Universal also includes about ten deleted scenes of varying length, which
come with an optional commentary track by Cohen (although you can't toggle the
commentary on and off while watching these). I always find deleted scenes
interesting, and I liked Cohen's explanations of why they didn't make it to the
film; but after one hour and forty-seven minutes of Skullduggery, I didn't see
much in the extra scenes that thrilled me.

What else have we got? There's a theatrical trailer, a set of
"recommendations" (still images of other Universal DVD titles), and a
15-minute "Spotlight on Location," which had the cast singing each
other's praises and brown-nosing Rob Cohen a lot. They didn't talk about the
location itself, which I would have found more interesting.

The Rebuttal Witnesses

The first of many missteps in this movie was making the secret society
anything but. Not only does everyone know about the benefits of being a Skull
(Luke is literally waiting for their phone call at the beginning of the movie),
but they seem to advertise themselves on campus more than Starbuck's. Their
gothic frat house has a big metal skull on top, like a cartoon super-villain's
hidden lair. How subtle.

Accept that, and you'll still have to deal with at least a dozen major plot
holes, gaps in logic, and inconsistent characters. Why do the Skulls want Luke
in the first place, since he's demonstrably from the wrong side of the tracks;
do power-hungry bourgeoisie need championship rowers by their sides? How are the
Skulls able to keep tabs (or, often, bugs) on all their members; is there a
secret society within the society responsible for surveillance? Why, in a group
so focused on gathering blackmail material, are all surveillance tapes left in
an unguarded central location? Who cleans and changes the torches in all of
their photogenic underground chambers?

You may think I'm nitpicking what is meant to be a no-brainer film, but
The Skulls is painful even for a popcorn flick. Screenwriter John Pogue
couldn't draw a character arc if he had a compass; and Cohen can't seem to make
the Skulls either appealing or threatening, no matter how many gorgeous babes or
glowering thugs he slips in the shot.

The cast is weak as well. Joshua Jackson has the same boyish sincerity as
Tobey Maguire, but can't seem to make us care about Luke's ambitions, or his
plight. Pogue has given us cryptic tidbits about Luke's life as an orphan which
kinda, sorta, almost suggest come underlying motivations; but nothing really
makes it on the screen (one of the deleted scenes relates to this sub-plot, but
seems to complicate, not clarify, the backstory).

The most interesting people in the film are the heavy-hitting Skull council
members, played by character actors like Craig T. Nelson, Christopher McDonald
and William L. Petersen. If they had more screen time and better dialogue, these
guys could have taken the film to a whole other level—hammy and
implausible, still, but at least a little more ominous.

Sadly, all we get are a lot of pretty white boys double-crossing each other
over who gets to hoard the most wealth and power—in other words, business
as usual in Ivy League, USA.

Closing Statement

I can think of a couple of ways that The Skulls could have been
brought up from its status as an underwrought, formulaic heartthrob-driven
action flick. One way would have been to inject a bit more humor into the
proceedings. It must be fun for the Skulls to terrify potential entrants by
drugging them and sticking them in coffins; and surely not everyone takes these
guys as seriously as Luke seems to.

The other solution would take the film the other way, into more serious,
political territory. Are the decisions of presidents and senators really being
made from within a seemingly capricious secret society at Yale? Can our young
hero detect and stop a chain of events that might lead to international
catastrophe? That story would seem to justify the prominent placement of the
word "War" in the Skulls' Ritual Room. It would also be a rather
interesting attack on the American socio-familial power structure-not
inappropriate at a time when George W. Bush, another Skull and Bones member, is
campaigning for his father's former office.

Alas, both of these options would have demanded better scripting, better
direction, and a stronger bunch of actors, and that's simply asking too much for
a $15 million early summer thriller like The Skulls. The disc is a nice
package, but no matter how well you wrap up garbage, the smell still filters
out.

The Verdict

Rob Cohen, John Pogue, and the other creative forces behind The Skulls
are sentenced to ten more years of relative obscurity until they figure out what
makes a thriller tick. Universal gets a nod for their fine treatment of the DVD,
but the court hopes they'll think about what drove them to invest in the project
in the first place.